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NCAA

Senior Chakecia Miller drives past a defender in a game against Bowie State during her senior season. Hatchet File Photo.

Recent women’s basketball graduate Chakecia Miller has been named GW’s nominee for the 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year award, the league announced Friday.

Miller, who ran the point as a senior during much of the Colonials’ record-breaking 2014-15 season, is one of 480 student-athletes nominated this year, the most in the history of the NCAA Woman of the Year program. The program honors academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from Divisions I, II and III.

The San Antonio, Texas native finished her collegiate career with 275 steals, good for 4th most in program history. She also finished her time at GW ranked 10th with 385 assists and tied for 7th with 125 games played.

Miller averaged 6.9 points, 3.8 assists and 2.1 steals per game during the Colonials’ 29-win season, en route to the team’s first A-10 title since 2003 and first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2008.

The psychology major graduated with a 3.21 GPA and accumulated more than 50 hours of community service as a GW student. Miller was also a three-year member of GW’s Leadership Academy and a two-time Student-Athlete Advisory Council team representative.

Miller now advances to the Atlantic 10 Conference ballot for a chance to be selected to advance to the national ballot. The 2015 Woman of the Year will be announced at an awards dinner in Indianapolis on Oct. 18.

Sarah-Jo Lawrence, also a former guard for the women’s basketball team, was the last Colonial to advance to the national ballot in 2008.

After ending last season with an 11-5 record at home, women’s basketball head coach Jonathan Tsipis will look to take his team far into the NCAA tournament this year. Hatchet File Photo

The women’s basketball team will host last year’s regular season champion and NCAA Tournament participant Dayton, Atlantic 10 champion Fordham, Saint Joseph’s and conference newcomer Davidson as part of its eight-game home matchups and 16-game A-10 Conference schedule.

The Colonials will also host Duquesne, George Mason, Richmond and St. Bonaventure, the league announced Monday. GW ended last season with an impressive 15-3 at home.

On the road, the team will face Dayton, George Mason, Richmond, La Salle, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Saint Louis and Women’s National Invitation Tournament participant VCU. The Colonials finished at .500 on the road last season, ending the year with a 6-6 record.

GW finished last season with a 23-11 overall record, a nine-win improvement from the 2012-13 season. The Colonials earned a bid to the WNIT and advanced to the third round, where they were knocked out by the University of South Florida. GW’s two postseason victories were its first since 2008.

With arguably the best recruiting class in the A-10, the Colonials are on track to carry last season’s success into the coming year.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association will likely allow student athletes to get access to unlimited meals and snacks from their universities – abolishing a rule that athletic director Patrick Nero had been advocating against.

Currently, student athletes receive three meals a day or a food stipend. Additionally, partial-scholarship athletes, walk-ons and commuters are not included in the meal plans and instead pay for their own food.

That’s been a big problem at universities like GW, which has a non-traditional dining plan and expensive on-campus options.

Head coach Jonathan Tsipis talks strategy with his team during a timeout last season. Tsipis announced Thursday that four graduate student Colonials will return to the squad next season. Hatchet File Photo by Samuel Klein | Hatchet Staff Photographer

After missing all but five games during the Colonials’ 2012-13 campaign, the NCAA gave forward Brooke Wilson a sixth year of eligibility Thursday to suit up next season season.

Wilson will look to return next season to help the Colonials on both offense and defense, as she holds the 14th spot on GW’s all-time rebounding list, with 585.

Head coach Jonathan Tsipis also confirmed that seniors Danni Jackson, Megan Nipe and Shi-Heria Shipp will each return for their fifth seasons.

“We are excited that Danni, Meg and Shi-Heria were granted a fifth year of eligibility,” Tsipis said in a release. “They are excellent representatives of the GW women’s basketball program and are embracing the opportunity to play one more season.”

Jackson, like Wilson, missed time during her freshman season, breaking her leg in a game against Michigan State that had her sidelined for 24 games. Last season, Jackson was named the team’s Most Valuable Player, averaging 10.1 points and 4.5 assists per game while managing the team at the point guard position. She ranks 12th all-time at GW with 355 assists in her career.

Nipe suffered a torn meniscus to her left knee during her sophomore campaign in 2010-11, causing her to miss 25 games. Since then, Nipe has returned to the court as one of the Colonials go-to scorers, starting all 30 games, while averaging 10 points and 5.3 rebounds last season, both career highs.

Shipp, who averaged 9.6 points per game last season, will return to the court as a physical presence for the Colonials, after also missing time due to injury during the 2010-11 season.

The Colonials are currently ranked 15th in the most recent of the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Mid-Atlantic Regional Poll. The regional ranking is the first NCAA ranking in program history.

Three other A-10 programs make the list: La Salle, at seventh, Duquesne, at ninth and Saint Joseph’s at 14th. District-rival Georgetown leads the list, and local rivals Navy and Maryland also make appearances, at sixth and 12th, respectively.

Lead by second-year head coach Terry Weir, the Colonials finished 13th of 28 teams at the Princeton Invitational last weekend. Collectively, GW has nabbed one top-five and two top-10 finishes this season.

“To see eight GW teams earn multi-year NCAA academic distinction is tremendous, and it sets the bar even higher for years to come,” athletic director Patrick Nero said. ”After a year in which our teams achieved athletically at all-time levels, the fact that our student-athletes and teams also reached previously unattained academic heights is very rewarding to everyone who works so hard to ensure that our athletics program matches the overall excellence of the university.”

A team’s academic progress rate follows the academic progress of each student-athlete on scholarship, accounting for eligibility, retention and graduation to provide a measure of each program’s academic performance. The current multi-year period being evaluated runs through the 2007-08 through 2010-11 academic years.

It was the third consecutive multi-year award for both the men’s and women’s tennis teams. Six programs were also recognized for a perfect APR in 2010-11: men’s basketball, golf, men’s water polo, women’s basketball, lacrosse and volleyball.

Head coach Mike Bozeman stands in the center of his players at the end of an Oct. 28 practice, giving them some final directives. | Hatchet File Photo

Interested in being the next head coach of the women’s basketball program?

All you need is a bachelor’s degree, five plus years of women’s basketball coaching experience at the Division I level, experience with an intercollegiate athletics department and strong organizational, management and communication skills.

The posting follows the Monday firing of former head coach Mike Bozeman after the Colonials finished the season with a loss in the first round of the A-10 tournament to Duquesne. The official announcement of Bozeman’s dismissal also stated that the University would begin searching for a replacement immediately. The online posting appears to be the first step in that process.

It includes a job description, qualification requirements and says the salary is “open.”

Thirteen opponents finished ahead of GW in the rankings: Syracuse at No.5, A-10 foe Xavier at No.15, California at No.24, Temple at No.31, UAB at No.63, Saint Louis at No.64, Dayton at No.70, VCU at No.74, Saint Joseph’s at No.77, Duquesne at No.84, Austin Peay at No.102, Richmond at No.107 and St. Bonaventure at No.112.

With formal practices just over a week away, men’s basketball head coach Mike Lonergan said Thursday that his players and coaches are knee deep in their transition.

Lonergan spoke to reporters at the media day for the BB&T Classic, a charity basketball doubleheader that will pit GW against Virginia Commonwealth December 4. The first-year head coach said he and his cast of five new coaches are learning the strengths and weaknesses of a Colonials team that will face early tests.

“That transition has been tough. We have a new coaching staff, new plays and we’re familiarizing ourselves with the players and the system,” Lonergan said. “It’s going to take some time. We’ll be a much better team in January than we will earlier in the season.”

In facing last year’s NCAA Cinderella story in VCU, who advanced to the Final Four last year, Lonergan anticipates a tough match-up, but one that he will wait to scout.

“We haven’t really thought about opponents yet. I know VCU had a great year and the coach did a great job, but I haven’t watched any film on them,” Lonergan said.

Athletic director Patrick Nero, who is also in his first year, trumpeted the match-up as important for the team’s national exposure and fan spirit. The 17th annual BB&T Classic, which will fundraise for the Children’s Charities Foundation, will also feature a game between powerhouses Notre Dame and University of Maryland.

“It’s like playing a postseason game in the middle of the year,” Nero said. “It’s an exciting day. It’s not like every other game.”

The Colonials will play the second-toughest non-conference schedule in the Atlantic 10, an ESPN.com article said Wednesday. GW will go on the road in November and December to face California, Kansas State and Syracuse.

Lonergan admitted the schedule will allow little breathing room for his team, but said facing tough opponents will boost the team’s RPI, a metric used by the NCAA selection committee that adjusts rankings based on teams’ strength of schedule.

“I think our players are really excited by [the schedule]. They won a pretty good amount of games last year, but their RPI was really low because their opponents’ RPI’s were low,” Lonergan said. “I think that’s sort of reflected now where we’re being picked in these preseason polls because we have four starters back but people know most teams we beat didn’t have winning records.”

Tony Taylor battles his way to the basket in last season's first round of the A-10 tournament against Saint Joseph's in March. File Photo

The men’s basketball team earned the 62nd slot on The Hoops Report’s countdown of the top 68 collegiate men’s basketball programs in the nation Thursday.

Report author Ryan Feldman said the Colonials’ coaching changes, the return of junior guard LasanKromah to the court and senior guard Tony Taylor‘s ability to further his impressive performance from last season would bode well for the team.

He pointed to head coach Mike Lonergan’s new coaching style as an asset, but said the team’s overall performance hinges on its ability to quickly assimilate with Lonergan’s system and the continuity of its players’ performances.

The ranking is an improvement from last year, when the Colonials failed to break into the site’s rankings.

The Colonials are coming off their best season in the past four years after former head coach Karl Hobbs led GW to a 17-14 overall record and a 10-6 mark in Atlantic 10 play, good enough to tie for fourth place in the final conference standings. GW lost in the first round of the conference tournament to 12th seeded Saint Joseph’s, the second time in two years that the program qualified for the league tournament before falling in the first round.

The full list has yet to be released, as articles are staggered according to a school’s ranking. However, Atlantic 10 rivals Dayton and Duquesne came in at numbers 64 and 63, respectively.

The Hoops is a college basketball news website, providing news and information that includes articles on game results, standings, NCAA tournament predictions and NBA draft predictions.

Ave Tucker, a longtime supporter of the GW School of Business, turned his support of GW towards the athletic department with a $1 million donation in October, in part to enhance one of the country’s best college baseball facilities.

Though teams like Saint Louis may have more experience than the youth-laden Colonials, there’s a lot of parity in the tournament teams and the squad seems to buy into the belief that they have what it takes to win.

Seniors Madison Davis and Mackenize Jones each signed two-year contracts last December with Teach for America, a national organization that assigns recent college graduates to two-year teaching positions where they work with students often in inner-city schools.

Athletic director Patrick Nero said that his department will continue to grow because the athletic department can do something that others can’t: Bring in outside revenue to cover the cuts and keep growing.